Opera Software is making plans to steal market share from Microsoft. Though a launch date for Opera 10 hasn't yet been set, Opera is hoping the updated application will lure users away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 by building on Opera 9's use of small Web applications called widgets.

I can't help but worry when an outfit tries to punt its browser on the basis of 'widgets'. Remember the IE toolbar boom? That really benefited mankind and improved the browser's cache [cach-AY in the absence of French accents on my keyboard], didn'it?

Now I think widgets are a cute idea. I admit to having a couple on my desktop (courtesy of SuperKaramba) to which I've grown quite attached. But I had to wade through a swamp of half-baked crap to find those gems, and I imagine the 'community' for most other widget-platforms is much the same: overpopulated with hobbyists spewing out unfinished code and utterly banal bagatelles.

Why in the world a browser would want to be saddled with this kind of baggage, far less make it their main marketing plank, is beyond me. Somewhere, a Web 2.0 PR goon is cackling.